While making his rounds in the Burke Centre Virginia Railway Express (VRE) parking lot, Edward Amoah, the weekday security guard, shakes his head at the cars filling every space available, including the "no parking," zones. A rash of illegal parking in the lot exemplifies the need for more parking at the station.
"The police come here and give them tickets all the time," Amoah said. "Sometimes I don't blame them [drivers]. There's nowhere to park."
Gloria Clark drives the EZ Bus shuttle, a temporary solution for residents of Burke Centre, but not a long-term fix. Clark has heard the rumblings from the riders.
"I've heard them talk about the meetings," Clark said.
The meetings she was referring to were the Burke Centre VRE Parking Facility Expansion Task Force, created by Supervisor Sharon Bulova (D-Braddock). After months of examining all facets of the initial Burke Centre VRE station parking garage proposal, Bulova's task force came up with a preliminary plan that all members of the task force were happy with.
"The task force had a unanimous recommendation," Bulova said, noting that the recommendation would be presented to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, which needs to approve it before it goes any further. Currently, $14 million has been set aside for planning. The federal government put in $5 million, and $9 million coming from the federal congestion mitagation program in 2005, Bulova said. The total pricetag is estimated at $24 million.
"Now we're ready to hire an architect," Bulova said. "Just the design takes a good period of time."
One obstacle that wasn't solved was the size of the lot. While the county would like to see it capable of handling 1,700 cars, the task force put the number around 1,100.
"Maybe somewhere in between. The plan respects Burke Centre's three-story height limitation," Bulova said.
Bulova was projecting the garage to be completed in October 2007.
THE TASK FORCE approach is characteristic of Bulova's inclusion of the community on the planning of a project that is going to affect many residents. She used a similar task force when planning the Roberts Road bridge, which is located next to the Burke Centre station. At the first meeting on Sept. 17, 2003, the task force divided into groups concentrating on design, operations, and pedestrian and nonmotorized access. The whole task force came together once a month until submitting a written summary at the final meeting.
Within each of the three groups, members subdivided into people that lived north of the tracks, near Target and Guinea Road, and people that lived south of the tracks in the Burke Commons area. The differing geographic location created different criteria.
Janyce Hedetniemi was part of the design group. She was also part of Bulova's task force for transportation dialogue after the failed 2002 tax referendum.
"I was pleased with the way people came to agreement," Hedetniemi said. "What we came up with is a framework."
In its report, the design group stated that it did not see a need for more than 1,100 spaces because Burke is limited in size and there are not any new neighborhoods being built. The group didn't want to draw more cars and traffic from other areas of the county.
"It was a recurrent theme in the subcommittee discussions that the facility should be built to realistic parking demand," the report said. "Subsequent data have suggested that the actual needs for parking at the facility are less than those predicted in the feasibility study."
"Match number of spaces in the proposed garage with realistic demand data," was a size criterion the report stated.
Bulova noted that while Burke is not adding a large number of houses or people in the future, the goal is to try to get current commuters out of their cars and onto the train.
"The county staff is trying to project what we'll need," she said. "We may be all built out, but we're trying to get more and more people on the train and not in their cars."
The design group also concentrated on the appearance of the garage, trying to avoid a "monolithic" structure. Bulova understood the importance of a parking garage that wasn't out of place. The nearby Roberts Road bridge over the tracks was built in a similar fashion, which Bulova described as a "not plain old vanilla," variety years ago.
"We have to make sure the appearance doesn't look out of scale with Burke Centre," she said.
THE BURKE CENTRE Conservancy had another task force looking into the parking garage design, and Woods resident Art Steffen was on that task force. Nine of the members were members on both task forces, and Steffen was pleased to see so much citizen input. Also in line with the citizen input, Steffen is behind a garage outfitted for 1,100 cars as well, not the 1,700 cars that the county requested.
"My feeling is we go with the residents. Seventeen hundred is way out of line with what they need," Steffen said.
Years ago, Steffen looked into a bus system for the station, similar to the City of Fairfax CUE bus system. He noted the EZ Bus money will run out, so a permanent bus may be a solution, instead of the garage.
"Why not try that?" Steffen asked. "You've got to think outside the box sometimes. When it gets to the county level, the county makes their own decisions."
Steffen did credit Bulova for recruiting the residents that will be affected by the garage to come up with a plan.
"Sharon's been on top of the thing the whole way. When she presents it to the Board, I'm going to be there," Steffen said.